Human Well-Being and the Natural Environment

Partha Dasgupta

Human Well-Being and the Natural Environment

Partha Dasgupta

Description

Dasgupta develops methods of valuation and evaluation with the aim of measuring, and searching to improve, the quality of our lives. He focuses on the ways in which our quality of life is now known to be tied to the natural environment.

Human Well-Being and the Natural Environment

Partha Dasgupta

Reviews and Awards

"Professor Dasgupta's latest book is a remarkably comprehensive account of his subject. It seeks out and develops the fundamentals so thoroughly that its methods will have application in many branches of economic evaluation and policy assessment even beyond the environmental aspects that are its primary focus. He moves with ease from deep studies of the meaning of concepts like 'sustainability' to detailed empirical accounts of environmental damage. It is a book that will be used and consulted for a long time to come."--Kenneth J. Arrow, Stanford University

"The anthropologist notices that, as a tribe, economists love argument, which means of course that they also love theory and exact measurement. The great economists add to these two loves one more, a passion for justice. Partha Dasgupta adds yet another---compassion. His understandings of the meaning of poverty and of helpless imprisonment in poverty traps provide a commonsense platform for proposing new measurements and challenging professional assumptions. This is how the book transcends its own formidable proficiency as it initiates the non-professional reader into the idea of social cost benefit."--Mary Douglas, University College London

"Concepts like GDP focus on easily measurable things, whilst omitting ecosystem servicesand other environmental factors on which life ultimately depends. Partha Dasgupta is a seminal figure in his discipline, taking on the difficult, yet hugely important, task of trying meaningfully to measure 'quality of life.' This book will, I hope, set the tone for the new millennium, melding conventional economic concepts, ecological and environmental science, and a great deal of plain commonsense.Read it."--Lord Robert May, University of Oxford

"Partha Dasgupta is one of the deepest thinkers and most powerful analysts in ecological economics. [In this book] he attempts to go beyond measures of current well-being, such as the Human Development Index of the United Nations Development Programme because, as he puts it, "The present is the past's future". His tightly reasoned and carefully presented effort will enrich the thinking of students and professionals in economics, environmental studies, political science, political philosophy, and population studies."-- Joel E. Cohen, Rockefeller University and Columbia University